| Springsteen delivers solid set |
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| Arizona Republic, 2009-04-04 |
| By: Larry Rodgers |
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Two nights after launching his latest tour with a performance in California that one reviewer called rough around the edges, Bruce Springsteen brought his E Street Band into Glendale sounding focused and energetic.
As he often does from show to show, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer adjusted his song selection in several places Friday, delivering a well-paced set for a near-sellout crowd at Jobing.com Arena.
This was far from a greatest hits show, one of the main reasons Springsteen has avoided getting lumped in with the tired classic-rock acts that play casinos.
The 59-year-old singer sprinkled in enough of such '70s and '80s classics as the show-opening "Badlands," "The Promised Land," "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Born to Run" to keep casual fans happy. But he also dug into his catalog for such treats as a honky-tonk take on 1987's "Johnny 99," a scorching "Because the Night," and "Night," a lower-key track from Springsteen's 1975 breakthrough album, "Born to Run."
"Is there anybody alive out there?" Springsteen screamed repeatedly early in the two-hour, 45-minute show, which kept the crowd on its feet much of the evening.
Springsteen showed confidence in his new pop-flavored album, "Working On a Dream," by playing the eight-minute Western tale, "Outlaw Pete," second. With a short but wide video screen behind the band flashing images inspired by Monument Valley, Springsteen acted out the lyrics, which are full of stolen horses, bank robberies and knife play, as he delivered a sharp version of the song.
The audience gave its full attention to Springsteen, who briefly donned a black cowboy hat and went onto a runway that ran the length of the stage, allowing him to shake hands with fans.
The singer also waded into the crowd to interact with concertgoers, many of whom have seen him double-digit times, on a rocking version of the new "My Lucky Day," powered by some nice saxophone work by the legendary Clarence "Big Man" Clemons.
Another new song front-loaded into the set was a hummable version of the title track, with whistling by Clemons. Springsteen went into his rock-and-roll preacher mode and told fans, "I want to build a house of love" during the song.
Less than three months after watching Barack Obama, a man he campaigned for, inaugurated as president, Springsteen was finally able to abandon eight years of onstage commentaries about what he called the injustices of the past administration.
But on Friday, there were several moments in which the singer talked and sang about the current tough economic times that have left some Americans financially devastated or homeless.
"Tents pitched on the highway in the dirty moonlight, and I don't know where I'm gonna sleep tonight," he sang in 1986's "Seeds."
He brought back "The Ghost of Tom Joad," a centerpiece of his last tour, with its images of the Great Depression and sang about the trouble a man can get into when his place of work closes in 1982's "Johnny 99."
Scottsdale's Nils Lofgren threw down a fiery guitar lead during "Tom Joad," dancing about as Springsteen nodded approvingly.
Springsteen kicked off his encore with "Hard Times," a song written by Stephen Foster well over a century ago but sadly appropriate now.
The singer spotlights a local charity in each city that he visits, and during a pitch for St. Mary's Food Bank, he lamented, "The libraries have become full of people with nowhere to go."
He played three songs from his 2002 commentary on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "The Rising," including powerful takes on "Lonesome Day" and the title track, which had fans raising and waving their arms as if they were attending a revival.
No one can make a Fender Telecaster guitar wail better than Springsteen, and he did just that during extended breaks in "Because the Night" and "Seeds."
Clemons, who has face some health issues, spent more of his time on his feet and moving around the stage than on the last tour. After he pitched in on vocals on the 1980 classic "Out In the Street," Springsteen grinned and said, "The Big Man's dancing tonight!"
Springsteen also beamed as he was joined by his wife, E Streeter Patti Scialfa, for a new song, "Kingdom of Days." Many in the crowd seemed to think that the celebration of lasting love was Springsteen's weakest new offering of the night, heading for the concession stands and restrooms.
The crowd ate up a version of the quiet "The Wrestler," from the recent Mickey Rourke film of the same name, which found Springsteen in a lone spotlight holding only a microphone.
At one point, Springsteen went out on the runway and grabbed several of the signs that fans were holding up listing their requests.
He obliged with "Downbound Train," "Because the Night" and one of his earliest signature tunes, 1973's "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." He doles out "Rosalita" sparingly on tour, and several fans danced wildly in the aisles as Springsteen sang it.
At the start of his six-song encore, Springsteen recalled the early days of his career and how he sometimes would return to Arizona after a tour had wound up because "I liked the heat."
He mentioned staying in a hotel near Sky Harbor International Airport with a view of Camelback Mountain and his motorcycle trips to Jerome and Prescott, where he once shocked a local band on Whiskey Row by jamming with them.
"You can't beat it on a bike," he said of Arizona.
As he's gotten older and more plugged into the roots of American music, Springsteen often has wound down his shows with "Land of Hope and Dreams" and the folksy "American Land."
He played both in his encore, but he made many in the audience happy by sending them home on a more mainstream note, a fun version of the 1984 MTV hit, "Dancing In the Dark." |
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